Section: Partnerships and Cooperations

International Initiatives

CACAO

• Title: Lower limb electrical stimulation for function restoration

• International Partner (Institution - Laboratory - Researcher):

  • UNB Brasilia (Brazil), Physiotherapy department, Emerson Fachin Martins.

• Start year: 2016

• See also: https://team.inria.fr/cacao/

• Electrical stimulation (ES) can activate paralyzed muscles to support rehabilitation. ES applied to fully or partially paralyzed muscles artificially induces muscle contraction substituting or completing the normal volitional control. In CACAO team we join our efforts and specific expertise to develop approaches of lower limb function restoration in spinal cord injured individuals. Two main applications have been addressed: 1) Functional Electrical Stimulation (FES) to assist SCI individuals to perform pivot transfers and 2) FES-assisted cycling. We aim at proposing solutions that can have an effect on patients’ quality of life, thus our choices intend to be realistic form a practical point of view.